Question regarding xlr connection to my kenwood....

[KB4MNG]

I have a shure mic I would like to connect to my kenwood. It has a xlr set up. Pin out 1 2 3. 1 is ground, 2 is positive, and 3 is negative. Would #2 go to the mic element and 3 to the switch?

Thanks Brian KB4MNG

[WB2WIK]

Nope. The switch has nothing to do with the mike or the XLR.

Pins 2 and 3 are the microphone connections, pin 1 is the shield and for "PTT" (switch), you'd wire that up to the proper contacts on the Kenwood mike jack but they have nothing to do with the XLR connections (except the PTT ground return can be common to the pin 1 ground connection).

Normally XLRs are studio mikes and they have no provision of any kind for a PTT connection; that would be independent of the mike, such as a footswitch.

[W9GB]

Brian -

Bob Heil has a web page dedicated to this question:
Connecting 3-pin Balanced to 2-pin Unbalanced Inputs
http://heilsound.com/amateur/tips/ba...unbalanced.php

In the commercial audio world, professional audio devices such as compressors, limiters, equalizers, line amplifiers, mixers and such use balanced audio inputs.
Commercial microphones (like your Shure) have balanced outputs.
Balanced inputs use a passive, wide-response transformer or active circuitry, usually referred to as differential inputs, to create a balanced signal input.

Bob also carries hand & foot switches (PTT) and cable sets to take an XLR microphone to
your specific radio (Kenwood) connectors.
http://heilsound.com/amateur/products/accessories.php

[WB2WIK]

Yep, that's true and professional mikes don't have PTT switches.

They "might" (some do) have an "on-off" switch which simply breaks the audio line but this is not to be confused with a push-to-talk connection.

[WB8NQW]

Many times the on/off switch on a balanced system shorts the balanced pair together to kill the mike. This eliminates noise pickup from unterminated input lines.
Bob